Central Lutheran Church - Elk River

The Chronicles of Advent: Joseph with Pastor Ben Carruthers

• Central Lutheran Church

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The manger looks calm, but the choices behind it were anything but. We kick off Advent by stepping into Joseph’s story and asking a bold question: why does a quiet carpenter keep picking the hardest road when every easier option is on the table? From the legal realities of ancient betrothal to the social fallout of a “quiet divorce,” we retrace Joseph’s dilemma and the moment an angel’s message turned a hard path into an impossible one. Then come the miles: a rushed escape to Egypt with a toddler, a return when danger passes, and a final detour to Nazareth, the town no one wanted.

What emerges isn’t a tale of blind compliance, but a portrait of righteousness as relationship. Joseph’s obedience isn’t driven by fear or by the empty phrase “because God said so.” It springs from love—an understanding of the law as the heartbeat of God’s care, and a willingness to protect Mary, name Jesus, and trade status for faithfulness. Along the way we clear up common nativity myths for clarity’s sake, then press into what they reveal: obedience is love in motion, and courage often looks like protecting someone else at your own expense.

This conversation invites you to rethink Christmas with fresh eyes and to consider how love might be calling you toward a costlier, truer “yes.” If you’re hungry for a season that’s more than sentiment—rooted in Scripture, honesty, and hope—this one’s for you. Subscribe, share with a friend who loves a good rethink, and leave a review to tell us which moment in Joseph’s journey changed how you see Advent.

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SPEAKER_00:

Well, good morning. Like I said, my name's Ben, an associate pastor here, and uh we are starting our Advent series. And I will also tell you, and I told the first service this, I did not cause it to be cold in here this morning. Okay, I did not come in and sabotage the system. It's quite enjoyable, though. So but we are starting our new series on Advent called The Chronicles of Advent, where we are going to dive into three of the stories of the people in the Christmas story. And so this morning uh we're gonna talk about the life of Joseph. And we have this idea about the characters of the stories. We all know the story of Christmas, and we all have seen the nativity scene. And this is probably the weekend. You probably got your tree up or go cut your tree and started decorating and all that kind of stuff. And you probably have maybe a nativity scene somewhere in your house. You're gonna start seeing them at churches and all over the place. And we see them and they're beautiful, and we're like, this this is what represents the Christmas story. My wife one has one at our house. It looks like this. It's Willow Tree. It's Willow Tree. I don't know what it's called, but I know you can buy it at Hallmark. So it's called Willow Tree. It's very beautiful. All the people are there, right? All the cast of characters are there, and they all have a story. And one morning last week, I was sitting in my living room in my sitting chair and having my coffee, and it's right across from the nativity scene. And I looked at it and I noticed something different, and this is what I saw. Now, if you can't see what's different, I took a close-up picture for you. There it is. And there's only one person in our house who loves Stitch and has Stitch this much, and it's our youngest son, Ezra. And so Ezra woke up that morning. I said, Ezie, Stitch was not at the birth of Jesus. And no joke, he looked at me and he said, Well, the wise men were late. That's what he said to me. Kid's hilarious. Also, the kid's not wrong. The kid's absolutely right. You see, we have this idea of the nativity scene, the Christmas story, and a lot of it we have misconceptions of what really happened. And one of those is that the wise men were at the birth of Jesus. And they weren't. In scripture, it tells us it was a couple years later. Jesus was probably two years old when the wise men came, but there they are in our nativity scene at the birth of Jesus. There's a lot of things that we get wrong or have a different idea of within that, right? We don't know how many wise men there were. There could have been one, there could have been a hundred. We don't know. We know they brought gifts. Christmas, actually, his birthday, Jesus' birthday isn't December 25th. Most likely it's sometime in the spring. You know, the the wise men or the the there was no star at our nativity scene that the wise men followed. That was much later. There's a lot of things in our nativity story that get it wrong. Now, I am not a Scrooge. I promise you. I love Christmas. I love nativity scenes. Keep them going. They're great. But the idea here is that the truth behind the nativity scene and the lives of those that are involved are so much more interesting and fascinating when you dive into the scripture. Even in that little bit of scripture that we read this morning about the Christmas story that we read every year, multiple times every year, we know it. The life of Joseph, the man who he is, just comes screaming out at us in a way that maybe we have never understood before. We see we know very little about Joseph. We know that he was a carpenter. Uh, we know that he lived in Bethlehem, we know that he was in the line of King David, we know that he is the earthly father of Jesus. And that's kind of it. When you read it just through the story real quick and don't dive into it. But his life is so much more fascinating. And really incredibly fascinating, where I had notes and notes about things I wanted to talk about this morning, and there's not enough time. And so I looked at all of these notes, it came down to one word, and it was obedience. The story of Joseph is a story of an obedient man. In the face of incredibly hard decisions, impossible decisions, Joseph chose obedience. And so this morning I want to dive into that story a little bit and uncover all of these ways in which Joseph was obedient and answer the question why? Why would a man make so many hard choices, decisions, and continue to be obedient to God, not knowing where it would go? And we'll see how that lines up with our faith in Jesus today as well. So before we dive in, will you pray with me? God, we give you thanks and praise for this Advent season, this Advent morning where we come and gather with the hope, the hope that's from you. And so, Lord, as we dive into this Joseph story, a story that we've heard many times before, scripture that we've read many times before, help us to see it with a new set of eyes. Let it land differently on our heart, on our soul. And let us see the obedience that He had and the obedience that you call us to, and help us to answer the question, why? So your name we pray. Amen. So we'll dive into this story a little bit and the context of it, starting with Matthew 1.18, because there's a lot going on here. 118 says this this is how the birth of Jesus Christ came about. His mother, Mary, was pledged to be married to Joseph. Now we have to stop there for a moment because we have to really understand what this means. Because in ancient times, dating and relationships aren't like it is today, right? Like Mary and Joseph weren't at the pub one night and met and all that stuff. That's not how it worked. There was no Hebrew mingle.com where they were cruising looking for singles or anything like that. Matter of fact, what most likely happened was there was a matchmaker that put them together that said this would be a good match. Mary was most likely a teenager, 15, 16 years old. Joseph in his younger 20s, 21, 22, something like that. And a year prior to their actual wedding day, there would be this other ceremony, which would make it a legal marriage, where parents would come together and sign documents. Dow would be given to the parents of Mary, and there would be this legal document where the parents were the ones who signed it. And once those documents were signed, they were technically married. If you read in the scripture, you'll notice it's like they refer to each other as wife and husband, and they say that a divorce, and so they use words that come around marriage language, but they wouldn't be together for an entire year. It's a year-long engagement before they would come together as husband and wife. And we do not know what part along this year-long engagement that this takes place, but this is what happened. It's important to know that because it's not like a dating relationship that we're used to, where you know you maybe date someone for a few months or whatever, and maybe you're together for a year, and then you propose, and then there's a six-month engagement where you plan this wedding, and you this relationship's been built. It wasn't like this. Now, Joseph and Mary probably liked each other, maybe even loved a little bit, and we'll talk about that. But the setting is incredibly important as we move forward. So they were pledged to be married. And it goes on with 18 through 19. This is how the birth of Jesus came about. His mother Mary was pledged to be married to Joseph, but before they came together, she was found to be with child from the Holy Spirit. Because Joseph, her husband, was a righteous man and did not want to expose her to public disgrace, he had in mind to divorce her quietly. This is a big deal. Right? Couple things here. One, it says Joseph is a righteous man, which means he knew the law. He knew the law, he knew what was supposed to happen, he knew the process in which marriage was supposed to be. And if he moves forward, he's not following the law. It's pretty important. Joseph, at this point, is looking down two paths. There's two options that he can choose here. One, he can choose to publicly divorce Mary. He has that right, legal right. This is the legal path. And as a righteous man, one who knows the law, lives the law, and it's known in the community that he is this righteous man, this is the easiest path for him to take. Because if he took this path, people would be like, absolutely, you have every right to do this. This path really led to Mary's death. Because the law in Deuteronomy, which reminds me, our next sermon series after Christmas is hard passages, difficult passages of the Old Testament. And so if you want to bring up this passage in Deuteronomy to Sonia or Ryan, that would be okay with me. So in the law, it says that if a woman is found to be an adulterous relationship, that she is to be brought out to the town and stoned by the men of the town, stoned to death. This is the easiest path for Joseph. It's the path that leads to the least amount of finger pointing in town, whispering behind people's back, difficulty explaining. He's just gonna be over it, he's gonna be done with it, he's gonna divorce her. And follow the letter of the law. That's one path. The second path is much more difficult. It's he's gonna divorce her quietly. He's not gonna make a scene about it. He's gonna protect Mary. This is a difficult situation for him. Because people of the town are gonna start to see Mary pregnant. People of the town are gonna know that he divorced her. He's gonna they're gonna point fingers and still laugh and still mock him. This is a difficult path. But yet scripture tells us this is the path that he goes. And it tells us why, and I want you to remember this. It says, because Joseph was righteous. We're gonna come back to that at the end of this, but I want you to remember that Joseph was a righteous man. So he has these two paths, but then the story continues, right? The angel hasn't even appeared yet, and Joseph is given these options, and right away you see him choosing a difficult option. And now the angel shows up and he says this. Go to the next one for me. Matthew 1 20. But after he had considered this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary home as your wife, because what is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. Okay. First, Joseph had two paths, a really easy path that led to probably Mary's death, but he would be just fine. A second path that was incredibly difficult for him, probably saved Mary's life, but would live in the town a little bit with disgrace. And now the angel appears and says, Now I have an impossible path for you. What we're asking is impossible. Not just staying with Mary, but to marry Mary, which is fun to say. Take her as your wife. Think about it. Joseph is known to be a righteous man, right? Someone who knows the law, loves the law. And here he is, in some people's eyes, disobeying the law. He had an easy path that he didn't choose. He had a hard path that he was gonna choose, probably because he loved Mary and cared for Mary. And now he's got an impossible path to choose. And he does. He chooses this path out of obedience to God. Out of obedience to God. But why? Why would he choose a path that seems impossible, that lies who knows what's ahead? Why would he do this? Here's a little cool fun fact about Joseph. We don't know a whole bunch of them. Do you know that Joseph never speaks in the entire book of scripture? We never hear one word from his mouth. And when we do hear from Joseph, it's consistently about him being obedient to God. Look at this. The story continues and it goes on in Matthew. So after he's shown this incredible obedience to God and continued to marry, Mary, fun again, and to and now and to continue to be his wife, or her what? Her husband. There we go. We got it. The story continues, right? In Matthew 2, 13 through 14, an angel again appears and says, Listen, you got to get out of here. Because it's about two years later, and Herod has heard about this new king born. And he has sent people out to kill all the young baby boys to make sure this new king doesn't take over. And so the angel appears, listen, you got to pack up Mary. You got to pack up two-year-old Jesus and you got to get out of here. You got to go to Egypt. Now it's one little verse in scripture that we read about and then we move on. But listen, he's going to a place where he has no family, he has no support. He's already living this life of finger pointing and hush-hush and all this kind of stuff. And now he's going to Egypt where he has zero support. This is about a month-long journey by donkey. He's bringing a two-year-old who doesn't have a tablet or bluey to watch that whole month. This is a difficult thing, but yet scripture says that he does it. Just a few more lines later, the angel again appears to him. He's like, Guess what? It's safe. Pack up your family again and head back to Israel. And he does. But then again, the angel comes a third time and says, Listen, you can't go back to Bethlehem where you're from, where your family is, where your support is. You have to go to Nazareth. And no one wants to go to Nazareth. In the Gospel of John, it starts off with one of the disciples, Nathaniel, saying, What good can come from Nazareth? No one wants to go there. All of these instances where Joseph is obedient to God. Now I also want to say this. That this is a the the highlights of Joseph we have are great. But Joseph also made mistakes. We just don't have them written down. There were times where he wasn't obedient. There were times where he he messed up, just like every single one of us. But he was an obedient man. So again, the question is why? These are not easy decisions to make, and he does it. So there's a couple things that come to mind about why he might choose this difficult path. The first is simply that an angel showed up. An angel showed up in all of these instances and said, Hey, do this. God wants you to do that. And we think, yeah, man, if an angel showed up right here and said, Hey, go plow Ben's driveway, we'd all go do it, right? If an angel told him to do it. Scripture is full of stories that do not go that way. The story of Jonah, where God shows up and the angel says, Listen, go to Nineveh, spread my word to Nineveh. Jonah doesn't go right away. Our book starts off with an incredible story of Adam and Eve in the garden with God, standing with God, and God says, This is yours, everything, but just don't eat of this one tree. God is standing there, and they still disobey. The Bible is full of stories where God shows up and says something. An angel shows up and says something. Prophets show up and bring the word of God, and people continue to be disobedient. So I don't think it's that. I don't think it's because an angel showed up. I also don't think it's because this reason, which I don't know about you, but this just grinds my gears, no matter what uh end of this I'm on. It's not because God said so. How many of you like to say, because I said so? As a dad, I can tell you I say it way too much, right? And I say it when I'm at the end of my line. Just do the thing. Why? Because I said so. I've given you every other reason. Just do it, make me happy. Two about a month ago, two months ago, uh, I was up in my reading chair, uh, and my son Arlo gets up nice and early and he goes and has breakfast. And so I poured his cereal, fruity pebbles with marshmallows. Don't judge me, it's fantastic, okay? And we were out of 2% milk, and so all we had was half and half. And so I said, dude, you're gonna love this. When I grew up, I grew up on sugar cereal and half and half. Some of you guys are like, not a sugar, right? It's delicious. It was delicious. And so I'm like, oh man, Arla, you're in for a treat, dude. You get sugary cereal with half and half, this is gonna be great. So I pour it. He takes a bite, he's like, Dad, it just tastes different. I'm like, yeah, dude, it's half and half, but just give it a shot. It's really good. And so I go back down and sit, and he's still eating two or three spoonfuls. And he's like, Dad, I just don't really want to. I'm like, dude, you have to. All right, I poured the bowl. I'm just such a miser. Like, I pour, I'm not gonna waste that bowl of cereal. Like, that's a good bowl of cereal. I'm like, just eat it, just eat it. He eats a couple more spoons, like, dad, I just really don't like it. I'm like, just do it. And he said, why? Because I said so. I want to sit in my chair and I want to read. Just do it because I said so. Take a couple more bites, and he's like, I just can't do it. And I go over there, it's not that hard, Arlo, and I take a big spoonful and I put it in my mouth and I spit it out immediately because the milk had gone bad. I had made my nine-year-old boy have at least seven spoonfuls of rotten half and half unsugary goodness. Awful. Awful. That boy got whatever he wanted that day, man. We I almost came home with a new puppy. It was bad. But when we use that line, that's how it ends up. Bad on both sides. Because I said so. It's not from a place of love. It comes from a place of frustration, demand, authority. I just don't think that's what's happening here with Joseph. So why then? Why? If it's not because an angel showed up and appeared, if it's not because God said so and this is what you do, then the question still remains why? And I think we had our answer. I told you to remember it. Matthew 1 19. Joseph was a righteous man. A righteous man. Now we read that word a lot in scripture and we and we we talk about it a lot. We throw it around a lot, and it's a good word. It's it's it's good. But here in this setting, it's a Greek word called Dikiosis. Everyone say diciosis. It's a Greek word, and it means a right standing with the covenant, the law of God. Which, yeah, that's what we've talked about, right? That's what people knew about Joseph is that he understood the law and he lived out the law, and he was known for this righteousness. But this word goes deeper. This use of righteousness really means this. Someone who is in proper relationship with God. Someone who is in proper relationship with God. You see, Joseph was a righteous man because he loved God. He loved God. He understood that the law that they upheld as truth and God's word to them, he understood the true meaning of the law when it was given to the Israelites all those years ago. It wasn't given with the intent to live in this box or else. It was given to a group of people at a time who had been enslaved for hundreds of years, where generations had passed, and they really didn't know how to be in a relationship with God. And God loved them so much and desired that relationship with them so much that he gave them this law and he said, guys, this is how you can be in relationship with me. This is what we have to go on. This is what it means to be in a relationship with God. And I believe when it says Joseph was righteous, this is what it means. It means that Joseph loved God because God loved him. His obedience didn't come from a place of authority to God. His obedience came because he understood the law, which the law is the heart of God, and at the heart of God is love. And it's this love that compelled him to be obedient, to take these hard paths over and over and over again. Because as the great theologian Huey Lewis once said, the power of love. It sounds cheesy, it sounds silly, but it's absolutely true. Love has this incredible mystical power that compels us to do the impossible things. Love has the power to bring a Vikings and Packers fan together in marriage. Love has the power to bring a Republican and Democrat together in marriage. Love has the power for dads to do ridiculous, silly things at Halloween, like dress up like an inflatable Baymax to go trick-or-treating with his kids. It's the power of love. It's this love that compelled Joseph to be obedient. Because he understood that God loved him. And he loved God. It's the power of love. Many of you know my story. There's a piece of it that I just want to share, and that's this is my my wife and I, Anna, when we got married, we had an idea of what our life was going to look like. And uh, you know, I was in ministry and she had a good job, and she had we she had two kids from a prior relationship, so I got to be an instant dad right away, which I was really excited about. And we had thoughts and plans of what this would look like. And our wedding was great, it was a lot of fun. We went to our honeymoon in Jamaica, came back, and I went back to work. She went back to work, and after being home for two weeks, I was fired from my job. I was let go for mistakes that I had made. Big mistakes. So big that we had no idea what the future held. If you're talking about paths, there was no light in this path. There were sharp rocks at every turn in this path. And we had no idea what we were gonna do. We had no idea what the future held. And my wife Anna had every right, and I mean every right, to leave me. The world would say she should have in that moment. Because it was bad. And she didn't. And I can tell you it's not because I'm really attractive. It's because she loved me. For some crazy, unexplainable reason, she loved me and she stayed. It's the power of love. This is why Joseph was obedient. Because he understood the love that God had for him, and he loved God. And central, this is why I follow Jesus. It's not because there's a list of rules to follow, it's not because even if an angel said stood up here right now and said, follow Jesus, or it's not because I'm told so. It's because I know what the cross represents. I know that the cross represents God sending his son Jesus to die for me. Because he loves me. And I am far from perfect. And I do my best to be obedient, and I fall every day. And for some reason he forgives me. For some reason he continues to love me. And that's what compels me to be obedient. This is why we follow Jesus. Because the Christian path is not an easy one. The world would say, What are you doing? Why are you living for this God who there's so much hurt and pain in this world? Why? Why are you living for God? Why are you living for other people when you could be doing this for yourself or that for yourself? Why? Oh, because I love God and God loves me. And this is how I can show that love back by being obedient. It's the power of love that drives us to being obedient to our God. That's a beautiful thing. So when my first son was born nine years ago, his name is Arlo. But when he was born, I had lots of names in mind, right? So I got married later in life. I was 32, 33, something like that. Christian Mingle wasn't working out for me. Um so I got married later in life. And so, but I tell you, my heart was I wanted to be a dad. I wanted to be a dad so bad, and I had many years to plan what it was gonna be like to be a dad. And in those years, I had planned my two sons' names. I was gonna have two boys, and I already named them. And my firstborn son was gonna be Cage Virgil Carruthers. Cage Virgil. Now, you can use it because I'm done having kids. So if you're like, that's awesome, I want it, feel free. Cage after Nicholas Cage, who was a great actor. Conair changed my life. Um and Virgil, Virgil's my dad's name. So Cage Virgil. My second son was gonna be Jericho Benjamin. Yeah, he was gonna be president with a name like that. I was gonna call him Little JB, he would have been great. I have four children, none of them are named Cage or Jericho, just so you know. But naming your kids kind of a big deal, right? When Arlo came into this world, my wife and I looked at each other and we had a couple names, and right away we were like Arlo. If someone would have busted in that room and said, You're gonna name him Timmy, I would have kicked him right out. Because that's my son. That's our son. There's a line in this story that goes unnoticed. It says, Mary will give birth to a boy, and you will name him Jesus. Joseph was obedient in naming that boy Jesus. Not just that, but he says it's a name that's gonna change the world. It's a name that's gonna save the world. So you will name him Jesus, which means God with us. And he did. And it's in that central Lutheran church that we can find our hope. Our hope is found in nothing in this world, but in the love of God that loved us so much that he sent his son to die for the world. And that's you and me. Amen.

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Ryan Braley

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